Dented Can Of Green Beans

First off let me start by saying I am no way shape or form a professional therapist.  In my 40+ years I’ve been through enough to make me a professional in my own experiences.  I always maintain that I am a product of everything I have ever been through, friendships, relationships, the good the bad decisions, the learning experiences.  Most of my writing isn’t specific to a person. They are usually conversations had between me and friends or people I allow to pick my brain. The transparency or relatability is what allows anyone to tailor certain parts to their life. This is not A ministry.  This is MY ministry. I do not and will never ask anyone to think or process information like me.  I just try to get you to step out of your own confines and look at whatever different than what you are used to. Sometimes you really can’t see different until you detach yourself from your usual train of thought or processing information. Like I always say, I don’t give advice, I give my story. Take what you need, and leave the rest.

This piece unknowingly started a few months back when I had conversation with Dash. We were talking about being "damaged" or being "broken".  Fast forward to a few days ago conversation I had with two other friends.  Let me be CLEAR! Being damaged or broken is NOT gender specific. There are different levels of brokenness as well as everyone may absolutely display it differently.  Don’t think this is one sided but some of this will sound like a man's perspective mainly because I'M A MAN..duh!...lol.  I will not go into what or how people become broken because we could talk, cry, have come Jesus moments all day if we go into the reasons why.

How you deal with being broken is absolutely 100% up to you.

#1 and most importantly, you can NOT fix something if you don’t own up to it being broken in the first place. How can you heal it if you don’t reveal it? Be honest with yourself.  Stand in your truth. Acknowledge it!  YES, I'M FUCKED UP!!!

Some of you are broken and will remain broken until you stop being enamored with the appearance of being fixed. Ask yourself?  Why am I being loyal to being broken?  Is it because it's easier to stay a victim? Is it easier to say look what THEY did to me?

I am in no way faulting anyone for being broken in fact I'm almost positive everything that contributes to your brokenness was result of someone else's actions.  So yes, you were a victim.  Now, how long you remain a victim is completely up to you.

If you are allowing your past to live in your present you are doing your life a disservice because you allowing your brokenness to dictate your now and in some cases destroy your future.  If God brought you through it, why can’t you move on from it?

Again, why are you loyal to being broken?

I'm Great!,  I'm Good,  Ain't nothing wrong with me!, trying to give the appearance of WHOLE, a mentally stable person,  a spiritually sound individual, but a whole entire mess when you take your mask off!  There is nothing sadder than a person who completely denies their brokenness.  In a relationship a broken person who clutches to or holds on to their brokenness can only eventually break the other person.

You are putting YOUR key to happiness in someone else’s pocket to make them think you happy.  Is it working?  NO, because you are still unhappy.  But everyone think you are great.  So you convinced yourself that that’s better than you actually being happy. The thought of embarrassment made you betray yourself. You will not confront the demons you have learned to hide from so much so you don’t see their presence in your everyday life.

Some of you have/will carry that broken baggage for years.  Hell, I know someone who been broken so long she basically buried the idea of what she can be if she was fixed.  She accepted the broken her is HER. Miserable is embraced as normal to the point you only identify and find a kinship with miserable people. Broken will have you uncomfortable with things that are actually good FOR and TOO you.

I have said before some of you are living in a bunch of broken pieces and pieces of anything is whole of nothing!

Some of you really need counseling and I don’t know why therapy is like a dirty word in our community but it's nothing wrong with it! So maybe this spiritual unpacking I'm about to do may encourage someone to go talk to someone to help them unpack the bags from the Broken Store they been carrying around.  I got a little bit of glue, so let's start picking up the pieces!

First, Know who you were when life first broke you.

You can’t compare yourself or your life to someone who didn’t start where you started. Stop worrying about who and what broke you and worry about how much time you have left because that's where YOURS(what’s for you) is.  What's for YOU and the brokenness can NOT reside in the same place.

You have to walk through the "door" assigned PAST your brokenness.

Let me explain "Doors".  I'm a paraphrase Pastor John Gray.

Doors are for:

ASSIGNMENT: My door is my assignment, everyone’s assignment is different that's why you have an alignment. You can’t bring everyone through your door that don’t fit your assignment.  It’s yours!

ALIGNMENT: The doors that are opening now. Things have been incongruent in your life. Things are working themselves out. What's the purpose?

APPOINTMENT: That's my door and everything on the other side of the door has my name on it, it has a set time.

Some of you have left your doors open and keep going back through it. Once you go through that door. SLAM IT SHUT BEHIND YOU!  And if you have to, LOCK THAT MUTHA@#$&%!!!!!

The key to doors which we seem to can never accept or get past is if we pulling on a door and it does not open we tend to keep pulling and yanking.  If you pull on a door and it doesn’t open, IT’S NOT YOUR DOOR!

If you read all that you probably wondering what does all that or being broken have to do with a "Dented Can of Green Beans"?  Well, HEREWEGO!

You ever walk through the grocery store and go down the canned goods isle and sometimes you see a can or two with dents in it.  It may have fell off the shelf a few times.  The can isn’t as pretty and perfect as the other cans, the label may be worn or come off, but you still put it back on the shelf next to the rest of the cans of green beans.  That's what brokenness is. Yeah you battle tested. You got some chinks in your armor.  Your label is worn off.  You keep hitting the floor but GOD keep putting you back on the shelf. Your mind say stay in the floor that's where I was and look at me I’m not shelf material, but you back up on the shelf.  You dusted yourself off and back on the shelf you go dents and all. Why?  Because even though you were broken your contents are still GOOD!  I don’t care how being broken made you feel.  I don’t care how being broken made you look. You still got some good green beans in your can! 

Don’t let being broken define who you can and are GOING TO BE!

Jay